Christmas Crackers – which ones are best?

As Christmas is almost upon us the Sunday Telegraph carried out a survey to find the best crackers on offer and top of the (Christmas) tree was Morrisons’ – the second cheapest at only 42p per cracker. The most expensive – Harrods’ offering, at £3.74 – came in only fourth place. The survey panel looked at appearance, loudness of bang, quality of gifts, hats and jokes. Morrisons’ crackers triumphed, in part because of the very loud – 8.2decibel – bang they made. They were also considered the most child-friendly in appearance.

It appears to me that what made the Morrison crackers special was that they did exactly what a cracker should – they looked fun for children, contained corny but funny gags and gifts, and frightened the life out of people when they were pulled.

They say ‘if it ain’t broke don’t mend it’. And it so true. If you try to make a cracker into something it isn’t it will be less successful. Keep it simple and let it do (to pinch that famous slogan) ‘just what it says on the tin’.

The same applies to communications. Keep your communications simple, clear, and do what you say you’ll do. Don’t dress up your verbal and written communications with long words and frilly phrases, or you’ll be the equivalent of a Harrods cracker – you’ll look good at first glance but you won’t be offering what your customers want and they may not ‘get’ you.

Finally let us ‘communicate’ this simple message: here’s to a very festive and peaceful Christmas for all our Quicklearn clients, colleagues and friends.